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Track Your Progress {31 Days to Your Goal}

We’re almost halfway through the month, and it’s time to talk about tracking your progress!

You may have figured out by now that I think a big part of goal-setting (and goal-achieving!) is figuring out how to motivate yourself along the way. We’ll talk about the flip side of that tomorrow (the dreaded D-word…discipline!), but today, I want to talk about one more way to motivate yourself as you work toward your goal.

source: melmommie on Instagram

I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m doing a #1000miles challenge in 2013 with a few friends. The goal is to walk/run/bike 1,000 miles in 2013, and I’m having a ton of fun with this challenge (as opposed to a standard “exercise 4 days a week for 30 minutes each” type of goal), which is a first for me when it comes to exercise!

One of the things my friend Melanie is doing is actually tracking her progress on a map of the United States. Her goal is to make it to all the way to Savannah by the end of the year.

I love this idea because she can see her progress each step of the way — literally! It’s a lot more fun than my method of just marking the miles on my calendar, for sure.

That said, I think it’s important to note that Melanie is only adding one state at a time to our map so that she doesn’t get overwhelmed by the distance between where she is and where she’s trying to go. She’s still tracking her progress along the way, but she’s focusing on milestones along the way rather than the big picture.

The important thing is that she and I can both see our progress so that 1,000 miles doesn’t remain an intangible goal. We can see when we’re on track, pulling ahead of where we need to be or even falling behind.

What about you? How are you tracking your progress toward your goal this month?